I feel the GW and other thrift stores fill a valuable space in our commercial life. What would we do if they didn't exist? Would we quit buying clothes for ourselves because we had enough although the styles changed? Would we go ahead and throw them into the land fill? Would we quit buying new fabric because we had so many old clothes we had to use in our quilts we didn't have time to sew new fabric? Thank goodness for GW and other thrift stores that let us recycle the things we no longer use. If they make a profit, good for them. If others are non-profit, better for them. Not everyone lives where they have the luxury of more than one recycle type store to choose from.
For me, it's GW or the trash. Salvation Army keeps very strange hours so I give them cash. I'm thankful I'm only 30 miles from GW - it could be farther, everything else is.

You would think that they would be glad that someone wanted them rather than sitting on the shelf!

I will continue to donate to Goodwill despite all the negative stories, and here's the reason why: As far as I'm concerned, the negative stories are all heresay. In fact, I'm starting to wonder about the origin and motivation behind such stories. I personally know of not one person who has been harmed or abused in any way by Goodwill or their actions. However, I do personally know of a few people who have actually been helped by Goodwill and their programs. For instance, here's one I can prove - there is a man named Teddy who works in my community at Costco. The man is a wonderful ray of sunshine. Every time I see him I have to smile. He is ALWAYS singing and is very pleasant and sweet. A couple of years ago our local paper did a story on him - one of Goodwill's programs had helped him get a job, a fact which I was unaware of until reading the story.

http://www.columbian.com/news/2010/m...despite-hards/